Manitoba provides $6.6M for new cancer therapy program
Treatment will be available to 2 patient groups after it is established — hopefully by spring
Patients who need a specialized cancer therapy program should soon be able to receive it in Manitoba, instead of being among the six to eight people the province currently sends elsewhere for the treatment each year.
The province is putting up $6.6 million to fund its own chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy program, which treats cancers of the blood and lymphatic system by manipulating immune cells outside the body, then transferring them back to the patient.
This specialized therapy harnesses the patient's immune system to find and attack cancer cells, especially cells that don't respond well to conventional treatments.
"It is a potentially life-saving treatment for patients that have exhausted all other cancer treatment options," Health Minister Audrey Gordon said Monday at a news conference at CancerCare Manitoba's offices at Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg.
"A program such as this will provide potentially life-saving therapy for patients close to home with less wait time, and will avoid significant time away from home."
CancerCare Manitoba chief executive officer Sri Navaratnam said clinical teams have been working with scientists in an effort to advance clinical research in this area, including clinical trials, and lay the foundation for a comprehensive CAR T-cell therapy program for the future.
She said it's a huge advantage for Manitoba to have the program, which she hopes will launch later this spring.
There are some logistics that have to be sorted through, but Navaratnam is excited that Manitobans who need this care will have access to it in the province.
"[There] is the patient advantage, economical advantage, and of course we have lots of opportunity to do research as well," she said.
Research suggests the number of people that could require this treatment is growing, and it will be used on more types of cancer, an email from a CancerCare spokesperson said.
Dr. David Szwajcer, the Manitoba blood and marrow transplant program director, said it's possible more Manitobans than the current six-to-eight-person annual average will require access to the therapy program.
"It is conceivable that those numbers in the next year or so may double, and I think that as a transplant program, we are well positioned to be able to offer that sort of therapy to those numbers of patients," Szwajcer said.
Manitoba might be able to accept patients from outside the province for CAR T-cell therapy in the future, he said.
Treatment will be a shared endeavour between CancerCare Manitoba, which will provide some of the services, Shared Health and Health Sciences Centre, where the current inpatient unit is and where some of the treatment would be administered.
The province wants to be sure it's ready to handle a potential increase in patients.
"I'm a huge proponent of prevention and going upstream to ensure that we are not just reacting, but are being proactive in the care that we're providing to Manitobans," Gordon said.
The program will help attract and retain highly skilled technicians and researchers, as well as avoid an estimated $2.2 million in operational costs, Gordon said.
The CAR-T therapy program will be available to two groups of patients for whom other therapies have not worked: people 25 or younger with acute leukemia and those 18 and older with aggressive lymphoma.
'Future of oncology'
Pediatric patients have been among the people Manitoba has sent out of the province for the therapy.
Dr. Geoff Cuvelier, section head for pediatric oncology at CancerCare Manitoba and the Winnipeg Children's Hospital, said the CAR-T therapy announcement is a big deal.
Children that need the therapy currently have to go to Toronto.
"This is actually going to give us a new therapeutic option to treating young children who have otherwise a chemotherapy-resistant disease," Cuvelier said.
"That means we can start to treat them here in Manitoba, which has a tremendous impact upon the family in terms of not having to actually leave the province."
Cuvelier said about one-third of the childhood cancers seen in the province are acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and they're usually cured with chemotherapy, but about 10-15 per cent require other therapies.
"This is the future of oncology. We have to go here as a province. In 10 years, this will likely look very different than what it currently does right now, but this is the foundational building blocks to get Manitoba into the future."
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With files from Josh Crabb